From: NLG Civil Liberties Committee
Sept. 27, 1992 by Chip Berlet
This article is adapted from the author's preface to Russ Bellant's book "Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party," co-published by South End Press and Political Research Associates.
"Fascism, which was not afraid to call itself reactionary... does not hesitate to call itself illiberal and anti-liberal."_Benito Mussolini
We have all heard of the Nazis_but our image is usually a caricature of a brutal goose-stepping soldier wearing a uniform emblazoned with a swastika. Most people in the U.S. are aware that the U.S. and its allies fought a war against the Nazis, but there is much more to know if one is to learn the important lessons of our recent history.
Technically, the word NAZI was the acronym for the National Socialist German Worker's Party. It was a fascist movement that had its roots in the European nationalist and socialist movements, and that developed a grotesque biologically-determinant view of so-called "Aryan" supremacy. (Here we use "national socialism" to refer to the early Nazi movement before Hitler came to power, sometimes termed the "Brownshirt" phase, and the term "Nazi" to refer to the movement after it had consolidated around ideological fascism.)
The seeds of fascism, however, were planted in Italy. "Fascism is reaction," said Mussolini, but reaction to what? The reactionary movement following World War I was based on a rejection of the social theories that formed the basis of the 1789 French Revolution, and whose early formulations in this country had a major influence on our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.
It was Rousseau who is best known for crystallizing these modern
social theories in
Fascists particularly loathed the social theories of the French
Revolution and its slogan: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."
*** Liberty from oppressive government intervention in the daily
lives of its citizens, from illicit searches and seizures, from
enforced religious values, from intimidation and arrest for
dissenters; and liberty to cast a vote in a system in which the
majority ruled but the minority retained certain inalienable
rights.
*** Equality in the sense of civic equality, egalitarianism, the
notion that while people differ, they all should stand equal in
the eyes of the law.
*** Fraternity in the sense of the brotherhood of mankind. That all
women and men, the old and the young, the infirm and the healthy,
the rich and the poor, share a spark of humanity that must be
cherished on a level above that of the law, and that binds us all
together in a manner that continuously re-affirms and celebrates
life.
This is what fascism as an ideology was reacting against_and its
support came primarily from desperate people anxious and angry
over their perception that their social and economic position was
sinking and frustrated with the constant risk of chaos,
uncertainty and inefficiency implicit in a modern democracy based
on these principles. Fascism is the antithesis of democracy. We
fought a war against it not half a century ago; millions perished
as victims of fascism and champions of liberty.
"One of the great lies of this century is that in the
1930's Generalissimo Franco in Spain was primarily a
nationalist engaged in stopping the Reds. Franco was,
of course, a fascist who was aided by Mussolini and
Hitler."
"The history of this period is a press forgery.
Falsified news manipulates public opinion. Democracy
needs facts.
_George Seldes
Hartland Four Corners, Vermont, March 5, 1988
Fascism was forged in the crucible of post-World War I nationalism
in Europe. The national aspirations of many European
peoples_nations without states, peoples arbitrarily assigned to
political entities with little regard for custom or culture_had
been crushed after World War I. The humiliation imposed by the
victors in the Great War, coupled with the hardship of the
economic Depression, created bitterness and anger. That anger
frequently found its outlet in an ideology that asserted not just
the importance of the nation, but its unquestionable primacy and
central predestined role in history.
In identifying "goodness" and "superiority" with "us," there was a
tendency to identify "evil" with "them." This process involves
scapegoating and dehumanization. It was then an easy step to blame
all societal problems on "them," and presuppose a conspiracy of
these evildoers which had emasculated and humiliated the idealized
core group of the nation. To solve society's problems one need
only unmask the conspirators and eliminate them.
In Europe, Jews were the handy group to scapegoat as "them." Anti-
Jewish conspiracy theories and discrimination against Jews were
not a new phenomenon, but most academic studies of the period note
an increased anti-Jewish fervor in Europe, especially in the late
1800's. In France this anti-Jewish bias was most publicly
expressed in the case of Alfred Dreyfus, a French military officer
of Jewish background, who in 1894 was falsely accused of treason,
convicted (through the use of forged papers as evidence) and
imprisoned on Devil's Island. Zola led a noble struggle which
freed Dreyfus and exposed the role of anti-Jewish bigotry in
shaping French society and betraying the principles on which
France was building its democracy.
Not all European nationalist movements were necessarily fascist,
although many were. In some countries much of the Catholic
hierarchy embraced fascist nationalism as a way to counter the
encroachment of secular influences on societies where previously
the church had sole control over societal values and mores. This
was especially true in Slovakia and Croatia, where the Clerical
Fascist movements were strong, and to a lesser extent in Poland
and Hungary. Yet even in these countries individual Catholic
leaders and laity spoke out against bigotry as the shadow of
fascism crept across Europe. And in every country of Europe there
were ordinary citizens who took extraordinary risks to shelter the
victims of the Holocaust. So religion and nationality cannot be
valid indicators of fascist sentiment. And the Nazis not only came
for the Jews, as the famous quote reminds us, but for the
communists and the trade union leaders, and indeed the Gypsies,
the dissidents and the homosexuals. Nazism and fascism are more
complex than popular belief. What, then, is the nature of fascism?
Italy was the birthplace of fascist ideology. Mussolini, a former
socialist journalist, organized the first fascist movement in 1919
at Milan. In 1922 Mussolini led a march on Rome, was given a
government post by the king, and began transforming the Italian
political system into a fascist state. In 1938 he forced the last
vestige of democracy, the Council of Deputies, to vote themselves
out of existence, leaving Mussolini dictator of fascist Italy.
Yet there were Italian fascists who resisted scapegoating and
dehumanization even during World War II. Not far from the area
where Austrian Prime Minister Kurt Waldheim is accused of
assisting in the transport of Jews to the death camps, one Italian
General, Mario Roatta, who had pledged equality of treatment to
civilians, refused to obey the German military order to round up
Jews. Roatta said such an activity was "incompatible with the
honor of the Italian Army."
Franco's fascist movement in Spain claimed state power in 1936,
although it took three years, the assistance of the Italian
fascists and help from the secretly reconstituted German Air Force
finally to crush those who fought for democracy. Picasso's famous
painting
Other fascist movements in Europe were more explicitly racialist,
promoting the slogan still used today by some neo-Nazi movements:
"Nation is Race." The Nazi racialist version of fascism was
developed by Adolph Hitler who with six others formed the Nazi
party during 1919 and 1920. Imprisoned after the unsuccessful 1923
Beer Hall putsch in Munich, Hitler dictated his opus,
This obsession with a racialism not only afflicted the German
Nazis, but also several eastern European nationalist and fascist
movements including those in Croatia, Slovakia, Serbia, Lithuania,
Romania, Bulgaria, and the Ukraine. Anti-Jewish bigotry was
rampant in all of these racialist movements, as was the idea of a
link between Jewish financiers and Marxists. Even today the tiny
Anti-communist Confederation of Polish Freedom Fighters in the
U.S.A. uses the slogan "Communism is Jewish."
_Wilhelm Reich
One element shared by all fascist movements, racialist or not, is
the apparent lack of consistent political principle behind the
ideology_political opportunism in the most basic sense. One
virtually unique aspect of fascism is its ruthless drive to attain
and hold state power. On that road to power, fascists are willing
to abandon any principle to adopt an issue more in vogue and more
likely to gain converts.
Hitler, for his part, committed his act of abandonment bloodily and
dramatically. When the industrialist power brokers offered control
of Germany to Hitler, they knew he was supported by national
socialist ideologues who held views incompatible with their idea
of profitable enterprise. Hitler solved the problem in the "Night
of the Long Knives," during which he had the leadership of the
national socialist wing of his constituency murdered in their
sleep.
What distinguishes Nazism from generic fascism is its obsession
with racial theories of superiority, and some would say, its roots
in the socialist theory of proletarian revolution.
Fascism and Nazism as ideologies involve, to varying degrees, some
of the following hallmarks:
*** Nationalism and super-patriotism with a sense of historic
mission.
*** Aggressive militarism even to the extent of glorifying war as
good for the national or individual spirit.
*** Use of violence or threats of violence to impose views on
others (fascism and Nazism both employed street violence and state
violence at different moments in their development).
*** Authoritarian reliance on a leader or elite not
constitutionally responsible to an electorate.
*** Cult of personality around a charismatic leader.
*** Reaction against the values of Modernism, usually with
emotional attacks against both liberalism and communism.
*** Exhortations for the homogeneous masses of common folk (Volkish
in German, Populist in the U.S.) to join voluntarily in a heroic
mission_often metaphysical and romanticized in character.
*** Dehumanization and scapegoating of the enemy_seeing the enemy
as an inferior or subhuman force, perhaps involved in a conspiracy
that justifies eradicating them.
*** The self image of being a superior form of social organization
beyond socialism, capitalism and democracy.
*** Elements of national socialist ideological roots, for example,
ostensible support for the industrial working class or farmers;
but ultimately, the forging of an alliance with an elite sector of
society.
*** Abandonment of any consistent ideology in a drive for state
power.
It is vitally important to understand that fascism and Nazism are
not biologically or culturally determinant. Fascism does not
attach to the gene structure of any specific group or nationality.
Nazism was not the ultimate expression of the German people.
Fascism did not end with World War II.
After Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies, the geopolitical
landscape of Europe was once again drastically altered. In a few
short months, some of our former fascist enemies became our allies
in the fight to stop the spread of communism. The record of this
transformation has been laid out in a series of books. U.S.
recruitment of the Nazi spy apparatus has been chronicled in books
ranging from
But if so much is already known of this period, why does journalist
and historian George Seldes call the history of Europe between
roughly 1920 and 1950 a "press forgery"? Because most people are
completely unfamiliar with this material, and because so much of
the popular historical record either ignores or contradicts the
facts of European nationalism, Nazi collaborationism, and our
government's reliance on these enemies of democracy to further our
Cold War foreign policy objectives.
This widely-accepted, albeit misleading, historical record has been
shaped by filtered media reports and self-serving academic
revisionism rooted in an ideological preference for those European
nationalist forces which opposed socialism and communism. Since
sectors of those nationalist anti-communist forces allied
themselves with political fascism, but later became our allies
against communism,
Soon, as war memories dimmed and newspaper accounts of
collaboration faded, the fascists and their allies re-emerged
cloaked in a new mantle of respectability. Portrayed as
anti-communist freedom fighters, their backgrounds blurred by time
and artful circumlocution, they stepped forward to continue their
political organizing with goals unchanged and slogans slightly
repackaged to suit domestic sensibilities.
To fight communism after World War II, our government forged a
tactical alliance with what was perceived to be the lesser of two
evils_and as with many such bargains, there has been a high price
to pay.
_Adolph Hitler
Originator: pierce@lanai.cs.ucla.edu
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 16:59:02 GMT
______- FORWARDED POSTING______- written by Chip Berlet _____
From: NLG Civil Liberties Committee
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Date: 07 Oct 92 20:48 PDT
Subject: Re: Berlet vs. Dallas Morning News (wa
Message-ID: <1299600092@igc.apc.org>
In the original posting I wrote that Stockdale was a current Board
Member of the Rockford Institute. Stockdale resigned in 1989. I
apologize for the error which was picked up from a reporter who
misunderstood the Hoover/Rockford sequence. Stockdale was on the
Rockford board during the Neuhaus controversy where the issues of
racial insensitivity and anti-Semitism first surfaced.
More information on the Rockford Institute, Stockdale, the
Paleocons, and the Perot campaign
- - - - - - PLEASE NOTE: My original posting suggested that
Stockdale needed to answer some tough questions about his service
on the Board of Directors of Rockford. Many people seem to have
lost sight of that key point. This is a fair issue to raise about
someone running for vice-president.- - - - - -
The Rockford Institute feud where the staff in New York was tossed
out for raising issues of racial tolerance was covered in the
>From the
"Pastor Neuhaus and his Center for Religion and Society have become
symbols of the neo-conservative side of the argument, standing
opposite the center's parent organization, the Rockford
Institute."
To unravel the background of the dispute takes a political
scorecard. The Rockford Institute and rightists like Pat Buchanan
are allied with reactionary and hard-line rightist forces in the
U.S. The more moderate of these hard-right forces sometimes are
called paleo-conservatives or "Paleocons" due to their ties to the
"Old Right" in the United States. The farthest fringe of this
circle is populated by persons who reflect a racial-nationalist or
even neo-fascist viewpoint. Buchanan networks across the spectrum
of the hard-right, from Paleocon to neo-Fascist. Racism and
anti-Jewish bigotry were common themes in some (although not all)
Old Right groups.
Buchanan endorsed the work of the Rockford Institute after the
Neuhaus incident. In his January 25, 1990 newsletter, Buchanan
penned what was in essence an ode to fascism which celebrated the
efficiency of autocracy, and concluded with the line, "If the
people are corrupt, the more democracy, the worse the government."
The column also echoed historically racialist themes.
The "Neocons," the neo-conservative movement in the United States
for over ten years quietly tolerated more than a little
anti-democratic authoritarianism, anti-Jewish bigotry, and racism
from their tactical allies on the Paleocon right. Their alliance
was based on shared support for militant anti-communism,
celebration of unfettered free enterprise, calls for high levels
of U.S. spending on the U.S. military, and support for a
militarily strong Israel dominated by hard-line ultraconservative
political parties that would stand as a bulwark against communism
in the Middle East.
Since there are some high-profile Jews in the intellectual
leadership of the neo-conservative movement, some persons have
concluded that neo-conservatism is a Jewish ideology. This is a
prejudiced assertion, and it is at the heart of much of the
Neocon/Paleocon dispute, with the Paleocons repeatedly making
bigotted references about the people who "control" the Neocon
movement and charge them with "anti-Semitism" and "nativism." See
for example the June 1992
For a look at the Neocon view of Buchanan and the Rockford crowd
see the May 1992 issues of
Fascist political movements are experiencing a resurgence around
the world. In the United States, the 1992 presidential campaigns
of David Duke, Patrick Buchanan, and H. Ross Perot echoed
different elements of historic fascism.
Duke's neo-Nazi past resonates, in a consciously sanitized form, in
his current formulations of white supremacist and anti-Jewish
political theories. Duke has embraced key elements of the neoNazi
Christian Identity religion.
Buchanan's theories of isolationist nationalism and xenophobia
hearken back to the proto-fascist ideas of the 1930's America
First movement and its well-known promoters, Charles Lindbergh and
Father Charles Coughlin. In his Republican convention speech,
Buchanan eerily invoked Nazi symbols of blood, soil and honor.
Perot's candidacy provided us with a contemporary model of the
fascist concept of the organic leader, the "Man on a White Horse"
whose strong egocentric commands are seen as reflecting the will
of the people.
These three candidacies were played out as the Bush Administration
pursued its agenda of a managed corporate economy, a repressive
national security state, and an aggressive foreign policy based on
military threat, all of which borrows heavily from the theories of
corporatism, authoritarianism, and militarism adopted by Italian
fascism.
Duke, Buchanan, and Perot all feed on the politics of resentment,
alienation, frustration, anger and fear. Their supporters tended
to blame our vexing societal problems on handy scapegoats and they
sought salvation from a strong charismatic leader. See the
prescient article on "The Politics of Frustration" by conservative
Republican analyst Kevin Phillips in
There are other strains of fascism active today. While much
attention has been paid to the more extreme biologicaldeterminist
neo-Nazi groups such as racist skinheads, there has also been
steady growth in other forms of Fascism. Corporatism (sometimes
called corporativism) and the economic nationalist branch of
fascism are being revived. In Eastern Europe, racial nationalism,
a key component of fascism, has surfaced in many new political
parties, and is a driving force behind the tragic bloodletting and
drive for "ethnic cleansing" in the former nation of Yugoslavia.
Other pillars of fascism such as racism, xenophobia, anti-Jewish
theories and anti-immigrant scapegoating provide a sinister
backdrop for increasing physical assaults on people of color and
lesbians and gay men.
Further complicating matters is the reemergence in Europe of
fascist ideologies that promote concepts of racial nationalism: a
national socialist strain of fascist ideology called the Third
Position or Third Way, and its more intellectual aristocratic ally
called the European New Right (Nouvelle Droit) For a brilliant
short essay on the rise of the Nouvelle Droit see "Pogroms Begin
in the Mind" by Wolfgang Haug, a transcribed lecture with a
challenging introduction by Janet Biehl (
Third Position adherents actively seek to recruit from the left.
One such group is the American Front in Portland, Oregon, which
runs a phone hotline that in late November, 1991 featured an
attack on critics of left/right coalitions. White supremacist
leader Tom Metzger promotes Third Position politics in his
newspaper
Scruton:
"Fascism is characterized by the following features (not all of
which need be present in any of its recognized instances):
nationalism; hostility to democracy, to egalitarianism, and to the
values of the enlightenment; the cult of the leader, and
admiration for his special qualities; a respect for collective
organization, and a love of the symbols associated with it, such
as uniforms, parades and army discipline."
"The ultimate doctrine contains little that is specific, beyond an
appeal to energy, and action."
Another way to look at fascism is as a movement of extreme racial
or cultural nationalism, combined with economic corporatism and
authoritarian autocracy; masked during its rise to state power by
pseudo-radical populist appeals to overthrow a conspiratorial
elitist regime; spurred by a strong charismatic leader whose
reactionary ideas are said to organically express the will of the
masses who are urged to engage in a heroic collective effort to
attain a metaphysical goal against the machinations of a
scapegoated demonized adversary.
In any case, in most definitions of fascism the themes of
conspiracism and a needed scapegoat emerge.
In recent years the four main centers of paranoid conspiracism and
scapegoating on the right have been the John Birch Society, the
Liberty Lobby, the LaRouchians, and the right-wing Christian
fundamentalist sector of the movement known as the New Right.
The most useful general sources of information on U.S. right-wing
conspiracy theories and the basis for understanding the role of
reductionism and scapegoating in these movements are: Richard
Hofstadter, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" (New York:
Knopf, 1965); George Johnson, "Architects of Fear: Conspiracy
Theories and Paranoia in American Politics" (Los Angeles:
Tarcher/Houghton Mifflin, 1983); and Frank P. Mintz, "The Liberty
Lobby and the American Right: Race, Conspiracy, and Culture"
(Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985).
For a lengthy discussion of scapegoating and witch hunts, see the
September/October issue of
For a deeper understanding of fascism and its use of scapegoating,
see: A. J. Nichols, "Weimar and the Rise of Hitler" (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1979), Daniel Guerin, "Fascism and Big Business"
(New York: Monad Press/Pathfinder, 1973), James Joes, "Fascism in
the Contemporary World: Ideology, Evolution, Resurgence" (Boulder:
Westview, 1978).>
-Chip Berlet, analyst Political Research Associates 678
Massachusetts Ave, #702 Cambridge, MA 02139
Write for our list of publications including bibliographies
________ END OF FORWARDED POSTING ___________-
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So according to Chip "fascism" is a term which "has little in
common" from application to application. In other words: a term
with no denotation, only connotation. That is, a purely
propagandistic term. Suitable for old Chip. And his attacks on
LaRouche. On Reason. Etc .
But if one looks at Fiscism Germany, Fascism Italy, Fascist
Bulgaria, etc. etc. one can_if one uses one's intellect_see the
essential identity: an intense degree of austerity. The slave
labor camps of the NaZis (wherein the Slave Workers were worked
to death in 30 - 270 days, depending on the era and place_longer
life expectancies early, 1933, in German less later, 1940s Poland)
were most salient. But Mussolini had an "Environmentalist
Project" to empty the cities (copied by Pol Pot) which he went a
large way in doing. Hundreds of thousands of people were
relocated to caves. While few ate cooked food in Italy in the
late 1920s, the massive debt to the bankers was paid off quickly.
(Cf. "Literary Digest" April 1928.) Bulgaria put about 12% of
proceeds from sales of industrial goods into wages and
reinvestment_the rest going primarily to financiers, to German
stockholders, etc. Quoting from a "Know-Nothing" dictionary of
terms does not alter the facts of history.
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In article <1296500400@igc.apc.org>, NLG Civil Liberties Committee
Thank you for posting your definition(s) of fascism. While helping
me to better understand your broadbrush use of the term fascism,
the definition(s) also raise some new questions.
State-enforced austerity is not a central characteristic of >
fascism.
I find this to be an unusual statement. Prosperity has never
exactly been the hallmark of fascist regimes and economics is
"central" to any form of government. Certainly a fascist regime
uses pressure to enforce its state policies, so why wouldn't
state-enforced austerity be a central characteristic of fascism?
Fascism
Chip's definition:
This definition raises certain questions. Do you consider
nationalism inherently evil? Would you prefer a one-world
government? Do you feel that appreciating and defending one's own
culture and cultural values are somehow primitive instincts that
must be overcome by the educational efforts of the enlightened
egalitarians?
Why the "pseudo" in pseudo-radical populist appeals?
What strong charismatic leaders do you see in America today and
which ones do you fear? What "metaphysical" goals do they
propose? Can you name any modern day American scapegoated
demonized adversaries other than the remnants of Randy Weaver's
family and other small religious groups who would like most of all
to be left alone?
> Roger Scruton. (The Macmillan Press, London, 1982, p. 169)
> "An amalgam of disparate conceptions...more notable as a
political > phenomenon on which diverse intellectual influences
converge than > as a distinct idea; as political phenomenon, one
of its most > remarkable features has been the ability to win
massive popular > support for ideas that are expressly
anti-egalitarian."
> "Fascism is characterized by the following features (not all of
which need be present in any of its recognized instances):
nationalism; hostility to democracy, to egalitarianism, and to
the values of the enlightenment; the cult of the leader, and
admiration for his special qualities; a respect for collective
organization, and a love of the symbols associated with it, such
as uniforms, parades and army discipline."
"The ultimate doctrine contains little that is specific, beyond
an appeal to energy, and action."
Frankly, I think the first definition says much more than the
second "amalgam" definition which seems so non-specific as to
include anyone desired. When you use the word *fascist* are you
alluding to the first or to both definitions?
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From: NLG Civil Liberties Committee
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Date: 06 Oct 92 21:26 PDT
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State-enforced austerity is not a central characteristic of
fascism.
Chip's definition:
Extreme racial or cultural nationalism combined with economic
corporatism and authoritarian autocracy; masked during its rise to
state power by pseudo-radical populist appeals to overthrow a
conspiratorial elitist regime; spurred by a strong charismatic
leader whose reactionary ideas are said to organically express the
will of the masses who are urged to engage in a heroic collective
effort to attain a metaphysical goal against the machinations of a
scapegoated demonized adversary.
Definition excepted from "A Dictionary of Political Thought" by
Roger Scruton. (The Macmillan Press, London, 1982, p. 169)
"An amalgam of disparate conceptions...more notable as a political
phenomenon on which diverse intellectual influences converge than
as a distinct idea; as political phenomenon, one of its most
remarkable features has been the ability to win massive popular
support for ideas that are expressly anti-egalitarian."
"Fascism is characterized by the following features (not all of
which need be present in any of its recognized instances):
nationalism; hostility to democracy, to egalitarianism, and to the
values of the enlightenment; the cult of the leader, and
admiration for his special qualities; a respect for collective
organization, and a love of the symbols associated with it, such
as uniforms, parades and army discipline."
"The ultimate doctrine contains little that is specific, beyond an
appeal to energy, and action."
"Reactionary concepts plus revolutionary emotion result
in Fascist mentality."
"The great masses of people. . .will more easily fall
victims to a big lie than to a small one."
Subject: More on the Rockford Institute issue
"[Fascism is] more notable as a political phenomenon on which
diverse intellectual influences converge than as a distinct idea;
as political phenomenon, one of its most remarkable features has
been the ability to win massive popular support for ideas that are
expressly anti-egalitarian."
Extreme racial or cultural nationalism combined with economic>
corporatism and authoritarian autocracy; masked during its rise to
> state power by pseudo-radical populist appeals to overthrow a >
conspiratorial elitist regime; spurred by a strong charismatic >
leader whose reactionary ideas are said to organically express the
> will of the masses who are urged to engage in a heroic
collective > effort to attain a metaphysical goal against the
machinations of a > scapegoated demonized adversary.
> Definition excepted from "A Dictionary of Political Thought" by
Fascism